Better Pork - 2016 December

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Better Pork December 2016 9
if you want to keep your operation
going, you can’t stay in the back-
ground. You’ve got to keep going
ahead,” Van Engelen said.
Bob Brcka, an Iowa software
developer, figures livestock agricul-
ture is as many as 30 years behind
the “just-in-time” thinking that is
common in automobile manufactur-
ing. A frequent speaker at industry
gatherings, he’s general manager of
PigCHAMP which sells one of many
widely adopted hog-farm manage-
ment programs. (Brcka’s software
company, developed in the early
1980s by a group of University of
Minnesota veterinarians, is now part
of the group of compa-
nies, as is Better Pork.)
“The technology is available; it’s
just that agriculture and livestock
production hasn’t adapted to it as
quickly,” Brcka said in an inter-
view from his office in Ames, Iowa.
Recent hog-barn innovations such
as environment and feed-inventory
monitoring, weighing and sorting
devices as well as electronic feeding
all generate data that can be put to
better use, he said.
“I think that’s going to be the
challenge for the pork industry in
the next 10 years,” Brcka said. “How
do I take all these different sources of
data that are available? . . . How do
I bring that (information) together
in a place where I can make better
decisions?” BP
COMPUTERIZEDHOGBARN
Bob Brcka